I have to confess, I have invoked St. Ansel on occasion, and even mentioned people being happy with Holgas. But my point was never that equipment doesn't matter. Rather, my complaint with a lot of the equipment discussion lately is that there seems to be (to me at least) an innordinate amount of concentration on digital "Image Quality," at the expense of other equipment considerations, which do matter a great deal.
There have been a lot of lengthy posts lately about one camera having detectably better noise characteristics than another at ISO X,000, as viewed at 800% magnification on a monitor. I think noise is important, but it's only one piece of the decision. Most newish DSLRs (in my opinion) are good enough now that it shouldn't be the biggest prioirty in the decision, unless you shoot at the highest ISOs all the time.
Posters ask about which of two cameras might be "better," and before long, we're back to arguing about high magnification views of high ISO noise, and whether the noise in one or the other is more "natural looking." As if that's the only important aspect of camera performance. MR is well-known for being concerned about how a given camera model handles while wearing gloves. Surely, those types of issues should be considered as well, yet the net discussions come back to IQ again and again.
I'm interested that this latest generation of Nikons seems to have made a great improvement in high ISO performance, but I could never justify switching my entire camera system for that gain alone. If I had no SLR system now, it would be relevent, but even then, only one thing to consider. So tell me about all the rest of the factors. That's the value of LL to me. I'll watch how MR gets on with his Nikon rig, surely. But it annoys me to see people saying that the 4/3s cameras can't be considered useful for high quality work, now that Canon and Nikon have cameras with much larger sensors, etc., etc. (And no, I don't own any 4/3s equipment, so don't accuse me of the wretched affliction of fanboyism).
Frankly, when I'm looking at buying a camera, I don't need anyone to tell me too much about IQ anyway. I can just go to something like DPreview, download the samples, and judge for myself. (On occasion, I've taken a a blank CF card into a store and used it to take several shots at each ISO, with every camera that interests me.) What I'd really like to know from reviewers are things that I can't see on a web site, or by looking at images. Things like how does the camera handle in bad weather? Does it have annoying menu structure? Are there flimsy parts that fail early? My equipment satisfaction doesn't always match what I expected from the reviews. I think that comes from reading reviewers who concentrated on qualities I don't consider important in the real world.
In summary, I'd say the equipment is very important. What is not important are endless declarations about why some new camera model should be entirely avoided, because a competitor has just announced a newer model with 4% more pixels, or infinitesimally improved noise structure at extremely high ISO. I've been let down by things like poor acccess to mirror lock up much more often than I have by the fact that another camera might have less noise at an ISO I don't use.
Still, St. Ansel would probably do a lot a better with my equipment than I do...
